


Sleeping on the Floor

by BeautyOnFyre



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adopted Stiles Stilinski, Adoption, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Bonding, M/M, Mates, Pseudo-Incest, Stiles Has Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 02:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3191972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautyOnFyre/pseuds/BeautyOnFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talia remembered it all like it was yesterday as they watched their boys, Derek and Stiles, banter back and forth on the back porch and smiled. Stiles may not have been born a Hale, but he was 100% pack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping on the Floor

Talia remembered it all like it was yesterday. They watched their boys, Derek and Stiles, banter back and forth on the back porch and smiled. Stiles may not have been born a Hale, but he was 100% pack. 

The day Stiles was born, she remembered being called by a frantic Claudia, muttering reassurances that Talia would be right over to get her to the hospital while her husband was on patrol at work. She remembered being there for an hour before a ruffled John Stilinski skidded into the waiting room in his haste to be on time for the birth of his first child. He was directed into scrubs by the nurses and brought into the delivery room as the couple's son made the first wails of life. Talia's enhanced hearing made her falter when she realized that Claudia's heart stopped beating after uttering her last words, "I want to name him after my father, Szczepan. Szczepan John Stilinski. He's perfect, John."

Stiles would never know his mother. 

John Stilinski took the untimely death of his wife hard, but he had to make the best of what was left for his son's sake, if nothing else. Talia was called on at random many times during the first year of the boy's life, what with John nor Claudia having any family left to ask help of. The baby boy slept through the night after the first few months and could always be seen latched to his father's side.

Talia would never forget receiving that heartbreaking phone call while babysitting her children and Szczepan a year after John returned to active duty on the force. She was seven months pregnant with her third child and Stiles was almost three when John's cruiser was hit head-on by a pickup truck that hydroplaned into his lane. Talia remembered looking at the children outside playing in the rain puddles, blissfully unaware that their friend was an orphan. 

Talia remembered mustering up her mental faculties and answering that the child would be fine with her and she would be going through the motions of adopting him as soon as possible. Her husband was at her side before the phone was back on the receiver. "Do you think that is really a good idea, Talia?" Abram asked as he hugged his wife and alpha close. "He's human."

"I'm sure, Abe. He needs us. There- there's no one else left." She buried her nose into the collar of her mate's shirt, scenting him for comfort. "You used to be human too." Their hands met on her swollen womb as she continued, "This one could be human. There's no guarantee either way."

"Are we ready for this?" 

They moved to watch the children outside; Laura holding Szczepan by the hand at a particularly large puddle while Derek splashed one of his older cousins. Altogether there were nine of them with two more on the way between Talia and Peter's wife. "No one could ever be ready for this. But we'll make it work."

 

***

The most horrifying moment of Talia Hale's life came the day after the Sheriff's funeral. It was the day of the full moon - the first time that anyone not belonging to her pack had been around over a full moon. The horrifying moment happened when Derek sneezed and triggered his shift earlier than anticipated. Szczepan stared at the wolf in horror before bursting into tears. 

The wolf stalked steadily closer and the child wailed. She could sense that Derek wanted to console the boy but approached cautiously so as to appear non-threatening. Talia considered the very real fact that they might have to give up the boy. Maybe he would be too traumatized by their secret. 

"Der! It hurt Derek! Tali! Abe! It hurt Der!"

Talia watched as Szczepan toddled over to her husband and cried into his pant leg while pointing an accusing finger at the furry wolf. "It took Derek!"

Laura quickly moved to console the boy with her father. "Szcze, look. It's Derek." She ran a hand over Derek's head and scratched behind his ears. Derek whined, lowering himself onto his belly and crawling close. "See? It's just Derek. It's a trick that he does. I can do it too."

"Show! Bring back Derek!" he demanded, hand still fisted in Abram's trouser leg as he watched. The wolf turned to his mother, who nodded her assent, and shifted back into a very naked Derek. 

"It's still me, Szcze. I promise." Szczepan shifted his weight from foot to foot before eying Laura critically. 

"You can too?"

"Yes. Want to see?" At his curious but hesitant nod, Laura took off her sweater and shirt before shimmying out of her jeans and transforming before his eyes. The pile of shredded clothing was smaller as the light grey wolf approached, nuzzling the boy. 

With a lick on his cheek, she nudged the boy towards her hurt-looking brother. She could tell then that Derek was upset that Szczepan didn't want to come near him. Ignoring his nudity, the toddler reached out for the boy who hesitantly embraced and sniffed at Derek's neck, making them both smile. 

"I didn't mean to scare you. Sorry," he apologized as his father draped a blanket over the boys. 

 

***

 

She remembered when he started calling her mom at just over three years old and when he decided that he didn't like his name anymore at four. 

"Stiles! With a 'i', Mom."

Talia put away the last of the clean dishes, turning to face her son. "There's nothing wrong with your name, sweetheart. Why do you want to change it?"

"'Cause 'is too hard to spell!" Despite learning to speak at a young age, the boy was just learning how to use the alphabet to spell names and was indignant about how difficult he found it to remember which letters went where in his own name. "No one but you guys can say it anyways. I wanna be Stiles. Laura, Derek and Cora have easy names. Why do I have to have a hard one?"

Talia had to bite her tongue. She didn't want her boy thinking that his birth parents hadn't loved or wanted him and explaining death to a four-year-old was never on her to-do list. She crouched down to her son's level and ran a hand through his hair. "You were named by someone very important to Mommy, okay? I know that it's hard to spell and say so if you want to be called Stiles, we will call you Stiles. Maybe one day you will like your other name."

"Will you help me write my name for my door?" Her youngest son hefted his offerings of colored pencils and white construction paper as he grinned. 

"Sure, sweetheart. Go sit at the table while I grab you a glass of milk, okay?"

"Alright!"

She watched as he spread out his art supplies and brought his glass of milk to the low children's table beside where Cora was playing with her stuffed animals. She smiled as he wrote out a large, shaky "s" on the paper before he looked back at Talia. "What goes next, Mom?"

"Sound it out."

"Sss-tuh-iiiii-uhlll-zzz. Sss. Tuh. Is it a 't'?"

She grinned and they kept going until he had written it out. "Why did you want an 'i' in your name?"

"'Cause no one else has one." He grinned at his logic and giggled. The other children came rumbling through the door at that moment from school. "Hey Der! Come see! Come see!"

Derek grinned, dropped his backpack and toed off his shoes before coming over to scoop up his baby brother. "What's up little man?"

"Look!" He motioned to his paper. 

"What's a Stiles?"

"Me! 'Is my new name! I'm a Stiles, Der," he giggled as Derek tickled his vulnerable belly. 

Derek quirked his brow in question at his mother like only an eleven-year-old could. She nodded and pointed to the four-year-old's meticulously printed new name. 

"Alright then," he said as he hugged and set down his brother. "Tell you what," he said with a mischievous grin on his face, "why don't we go tell Laur and the others and hang this up on your door."

"Okay!"

Talia couldn't help her smile as she picked up Cora for a diaper change. 

 

***

 

"But Mom!"

"No buts! We are bringing Isaac into our home and he needs time to adjust to his environment and have a space to himself without stress. You two are sharing a room and that's final."

"Come on! It's my senior year. What if I want to invite friends over? Or a girl?" Derek fisted a hand into his hair before rubbing at the thick stubble along his jawline.

"Nice try. It's not like this is permanent. Now go move your brother's bed."

Derek sighed and looked instantly ashamed when he turned around to see a red-eyed Stiles. "Stiles, I didn't mean-"

"Maybe I don't wanna see your fat head either!" he yelled as he ran up the stairs to hide in his closet, slamming the doors shut behind him in a feeble attempt at privacy in a house of werewolves. 

Derek came into the room at a sedate pace a few moments later and knocked on one of the closet doors. "Please come out?"

"No."

"Can I come in then?"

"I don't think your fat head will fit," Stiles sniped back through the doors. 

"We'll just have to see," Derek said as he pulled open one of the doors and wedged his way into the narrow closet. He settled himself on the floor of the closet beside Stiles and pulled the eleven-year-old into his lap like he weighed nothing, holding him close. 

"I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings, Stiles. You know that I love you best and that I would do anything to make sure no one ever hurts you. Sometimes I forget that you don't sense things like I do. That you can't just know by my smell that I was just being greedy when I said I wanted to keep my room to myself. If there was anyone that I had to share a room with, I would pick you."

"Even over Isaac?" Derek felt a stab in his chest at Stiles' insecurities about his place in the pack.

He turned Stiles' face to meet his eyes in the dim lighting. "Do you know why we're taking in Isaac?" Stiles shook his head no inaudibly. "His father isn't good at being a parent to him. He gets angry and hurts Isaac, so the police and Children's Aide decided that he is an unfit parent. Mom is keeping him here so that he can stay here in Beacon Hills until everything is sorted out. His aunt needs to be contacted so that she can come get him.

"We're not replacing you with another eleven-year-old boy, I promise."

Stiles buried his face into Derek's collar and rubbed his cheek along the offered neck and shoulder. He couldn't smell like most of his family did, but Stiles knew how to cover Derek in his scent effectively enough without it. "Sorry for calling your head fat."

Derek chuckled and pulled Stiles close enough that he could scent the human in return. "That's alright. I kinda deserved it. Love you, Stiles."

"Love you too, Der."

They didn't leave their spot in the closet until Derek's legs started to go numb under Stiles' weight two hours later.

 

***

 

When Isaac's aunt finally came down from Colorado and got Isaac, Derek insisted that it was alright for Stiles to stay with him in his room. Talia was hesitant to take the compliance at face value but converted Stiles' old room into a guest room after hearing Derek and Stiles resolve their third or fourth argument about space and boundaries. 

At night, she could occasionally hear the quiet patter of feet across the floor as Stiles went to cuddle with his favorite sibling. 

 

***

 

On the night before Derek was going to go to college, Stiles slipped across the room in his pajama pants and crawled under the light summer duvet on Derek's bed. 

"You won't be gone long, right?"

Derek shuffled closer to Stiles, reassuring the boy with his warmth. "I'll only be an hour and a half away. You can come visit me any time and I'll come home every month or so for moon runs with the pack. I'm still just one call away. It's just university; it won't be forever, Stiles." Stiles nodded and sunk into the sheets, finally relaxed enough to sleep with Derek's arm slung over his chest. 

 

***

 

The first time Stiles had a panic attack, Derek remembered feeling like his chest was tightening painfully. He felt it in his Intro to World Lit lecture in the middle of October and knew something was wrong; something was very wrong. He packed his things and exited the lecture, fishing out his phone to dial his mother. 

"Aren't you supposed to be in class right now?"

"Are you alright?" he asked in alarm. 

"Of course. What's wrong?" Talia demanded calmly. 

Derek shook his head and walked away from the crowd of people in the hallways. "Something is wrong. I can feel it. Where is everybody?"

"At school and work-" Talia's line beeped with an incoming call. "I'm getting a call from Stiles' school, hold on."

Derek waited in tense silence as his mother answered the other line and he couldn't shake the feeling of dread as his chest felt tighter than ever. After three minutes on hold, Derek couldn't wait any longer as he ran back to his dorm to get his car. Half-way there his mom came back on. 

"Stiles is having a panic attack. I have to go get him. Let me talk to you-"

"Just tell him I'm coming. I'll be there in a little bit, okay?" He knew he sounded a little bit more than half crazed as he said it but Derek just continued to run through campus, making large leaps down stairwells and over benches that could be explained away as parkour fanaticism. 

He reached his Camaro and gunned it down 60 East, making multiple traffic violations on his way. He was too early for rush hour and made the trip in an hour, pulling up to the house where he knew his mother was. Stiles had to be with her. 

Stiles shot out of the house and Derek had barely thrown the car into park before barreling out of the car to catch Stiles up in an embrace. "You're alright, I'm here. Shhh, I'm here. It's okay. Let it out. It's okay. You're fine, just breathe for me. Okay?" 

Stiles coughed and hiccuped for breath as he maintained a death grip on Derek. "Der!" he stammered out between gasps. 

"Shhh. Just breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out."

Derek repeated his words as Stiles tried to copy him, only mainly succeeding in releasing hysterical cries of panic. Derek instinctually lifted his free hand that wasn't holding up Stiles to the back of the preteen's neck and squeezed. He applied enough pressure that the panicking boy cried out in pain before Derek kissed at his neck in apology, nuzzling into his throat. 

"You're okay now?"

Stiles shook his head 'no' as he held on tighter to Derek. The man turned pleading eyes to his mother and Uncle Peter's wife then back at his car as he pushed through the threshold and up the stairs to his room. He could hear Stiles trying to suck in heavier breaths and struggling to do it, so he coached him through it the entire way up the stairs. 

Once in the room, he realized that it didn't smell like himself anymore - just Stiles. Derek hadn't been home since the end of August but surely he should smell something of his in here, right? "Did you toss out all my clothes that I left or something?" he joked. Stiles mumbled a quick 'no' into his shoulder before loosening his grip and returning to the floor. Derek took another incredulous sniff. "Why can't I smell me in here? Looks like it's officially Casa del Stiles in here."

Stiles both looked like he wanted to cry in frustration and die of embarrassment in the same moment. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

"What happened?" He watched a tear slip down the pink globe of Stiles' cheek and wiped it away. "Don't cry, talk to me. I drove all the way here just for you so tell me what's up?"

It took another twenty minutes of wheedling with the boy before he spilled the beans. "I missed how you smell so I slept in your bed for a while. Then that faded and I got out one of your shirts, then your other shirts, and I can't sleep well now and I was thinking today about what if you didn't come home. What if you decided to move somewhere else and not come back to the house? Then I couldn't breathe."

Derek sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled the human in close. "I think I need to come home more. Do you think that will help?" Stiles nodded into his shoulder. "Okay." 

 

***

 

Stiles never really thought of how much he was missing by not running with his family until his cousin, Uncle Peter's daughter Lila, complained about unfair it was to be human. Her younger brother could shift and run with the pack while Lila always had to stay back at the house for safety. Stiles had never thought to envy his brother or sisters. He remembered Cora's first shift and was the one his siblings came to for a good ear scratch. He always ended up in the middle of the family puppy piles at the end of the moon runs, usually sandwiched between Laura and Cora with Derek pillowing his head. 

It never truly occurred to Stiles to want the bite. Not until Lila spoke of it, anyways. 

"Auntie, would you give me the bite?" Lila was a few months younger than Cora and stood almost as tall as Stiles. She peered over her Aunt's shoulder to see Stiles working on his homework at the table and giving her a puzzled look. 

Talia sighed and followed her niece's gaze to land on her own human son. "Lila, you're too young still. You might meet a human one day that you fall in love with and you'll have enough to deal with as a teenager without worrying about the shift. You won't be able to achieve the full shift either. You would only have access to your Beta shift." Talia lifted a hand to Lila's curly brown hair and smiled. "If you're sure about this when you graduate from high school, I'll give you the bite. Just embrace being you for now."

Lila nodded and retreated outside for the time being. Turning against the counter, Talia met her human son's gaze. "I meant to have this talk with you sooner, Stiles, but I couldn't bring myself to invite envy into your life."

"I don't envy my family. I'm still pack."

Pushing away from the counter, Talia went to sit beside Stiles. "I've always dreaded the day that you might ask for the bite just because we don't know if you would survive it."

The sixteen-year-old cocked his head, "Mom, what are you talking about? I just figured I had a dormant gene. My kids could be wolves still."

Talia's heart broke a little, wishing that Stiles had been hers from the start. "I hope you understand that this has always been hard for me to talk about."

"What has?"

"Szczepan. I love you."

Stiles dropped his pen and grabbed his mother's hand. "I love you too, Mom."

"You were named by someone who was very special to me. Her name was Claudia Stilinski." The alpha could feel the tears in her eyes as she thought of Claudia's last heartbeat. 

"Why did your friend name me?"

"Because you were her son." Talia felt the hand in hers tighten. "She died after she gave you your name. She said that you were perfect." She took a breath to steady herself. A look at Stiles showed that he was crying and a bit conflicted. "Your father, John Stilinski, was the sheriff at the time and took off a bit more than a year to raise you. I helped out where I could but the two of you were inseparable. He was an awesome dad to you. When he finally went back to work, he left you with us while he was working. He'd pull into the drive after a shift and you would hold your arms out for him to pick you up. You were his world, Stiles."

"What happened to him?"

"It was raining when he was patrolling and an oncoming truck hydroplaned into his lane."

Stiles nodded, not looking at the woman he had come to know as his mother. He stood up from the table and gently pulled his hand from his mother's grasp. His hand retreated to his pocket where she could hear his car keys jingle. "Did you want me to call Derek?" Stiles nodded again before heading out the door and jumping into his Jeep, the one he had picked out when he got his license. 

With a sigh, Talia picked up her phone from the kitchen counter and dialed the number as promised. 

"Hey Mom," Derek answered on the third ring with a yawn. 

"Were you sleeping? It's only four in the afternoon."

"No, just tired. Studied late last night for a test today. I'm just doing some reading before I have to get up and find dinner. What's up?" Another yawn was audible from Derek's end of the line. 

"Stiles is on his way to see you."

"Why is he upset?"

Talia rolled her eyes at the accusatory tone in her son's voice. "Lila asked for the bite in front of Stiles, so I leveled with him about my fear."

"You told him." The tone was reprimanding and frustrated at the same time. "Damn it! Mom, I told you not to do it without all of us there!"

"Don't take that tone with me," she could feel the alpha command in her words and heard a soft whine from the other end. "I couldn't not tell him, Derek. He needed to know and it was the right time. I would've preferred to have had you and Laura home to reassure him but things don't always work out how they should."

"Tell me about it." Something in Derek's voice made Talia stop. 

"What's wrong, Derek? And don't tell me nothing because I'm your mother and I know something is bothering you."

"I really don't want to talk about it right now."

"Derek…"

"Fine! You want to know? I found my mate. There, I said it. Can we leave it alone now?" Derek was agitated but still withholding something.

"That's a good thing, isn't it? I remember meeting your father. It's the best feeling besides holding your children for the first time." 

"No, it's not."

Talia was taken aback by the snappish tone. "Who is it? It's not a hunter or a drug addict, is it?" Talia had heard stories about both. It was almost impossible to give up one's mate, even if they hurt you. 

Derek sighed heavily, "Mom, I-"

"I just want to help you, Derek."

"It's Stiles." The silence as both of them digested this revelation was tangible. "I've known since his second panic attack. I was wondering why I felt it like the pain was happening to me and I looked it up while I was home. We have an empathetic bond because we've been so closely in contact since childhood." Derek choked on his words, clearing his throat before he continued, "It's hard to look at him and see my brother. I don't have that love for him anymore. It's different."

"Oh Derek,"she felt sympathy for his plight. "You'll be okay."

A sniff on the other line made Talia's heart squeeze, "I know, Mom. Look, I gotta go. There's stuff I need to do before Stiles gets here."

"Alright sweetheart. Call if either of you need anything." She heard the phone call end and put her phone down. Talia leaned against the kitchen counter with another long-suffering sigh. 

Her children didn't do anything by halves.

 

***

 

There was another day that was seared into Talia's mind - the day that Stiles first used his spark.

It was a couple days after Stiles' high school graduation and the pack was scattered across the yard in various stages of the shift. Most of the family was getting ready for a run and Stiles couldn't help but feel a little forlorn as he watched most of his family frolic through the grass and trees surrounding the property. Cora sat on the grass beside him as he scratched behind her ears at just the right angle and her foot thumped rapidly against the ground in a knee-jerk reaction to the stimulus. 

She licked his knee to console the eighteen-year-old and rubbed her cold nose across his shin. He understood the sentiment and gave a wan smile. Stiles had been in a funk lately and everyone knew it. 

The young man wasn't brooding or sulking, he just always smelled of hopeless sadness all the time. Their mother made a point of giving her son more attention and tactile reassurance when his scent was saturated with the sadness and depression that seemed to follow him over the past few months. She knew that Stiles didn't know why he was in this slump, but had a theory that her eldest son was fairing about the same while he was off exploring the country. The family had not seen hide nor tail of Derek since Cora's birthday in early April as he had finished his final exams, skipped graduation, and claimed that he would travel the country for a bit and figure out what to do with his life. 

The result was a downtrodden Stiles Hale that everyone else could tell was an emotional ticking time bomb. 

Talia remembered catching the smell of gun oil and aconite on the wind before she could hear the crowd of hunters coming. 

She gathered the pack and sent them in the opposite direction, instructing the older wolves to herd the younger ones. She called for Peter's mate to load all the humans into the vans and drive out of the preserve and into town. One of Stiles' older cousins hopped into a second van and they loaded everyone in as quickly as possible. Talia stayed until everyone but Abram, Cora, Stiles and Peter were gone. 

"Stiles, I want you to go. Take Cora with you in your Jeep-" 

"Mom. We're a pack. We're stronger together. What's the plan?" 

Talia eyed her husband and brother who shrugged and waited for the plan. "Alright, so they should be here in the next ten minutes. That gives us five to trap them and run. It sounds like there are at least twelve to twenty hunters coming. We defend our home and, should it get bad, we bail. Most of the pack is safely away so we just have to distract them long enough for 911 to arrive."

Talia pulled out her phone and dialed the emergency dispatch number, giving their location and telling the dispatcher that there was a group of armed poachers on the property coming toward the house. The phone line had just disconnected when the first of the hunters broke the tree line. Stiles watched as men carrying crate-like cases held the cases out to their compatriots and the others pulled out glass beer bottles with old rags hanging out of the necks from the cases. 

Stiles' eyes widened, "Mom, they're going to Molotov the house!"

Talia pushed Stiles behind her and eyed the back yard to see if the men had fanned out yet. "Peter, take the kids and run!"

The first lit bottle crashed through the mosaic glass of the front door and lit the entry way rug on fire. A volley of smashes was heard and the Hales could hear the fire catching across the front of the house. It was too late to run. The men were waiting for the family to funnel out the back of the house so they could be shot like fish in a barrel. Talia searched for another exit when they heard the roof in the attic give way with a crash that made the entire house buckle. 

Stiles felt the panic and desperation roar in his veins when another bottle came flying through a window to smash on Peter's foot, lighting his leg on fire. Peter dropped to the floor and rolled while he screamed and Abram smothered the fire with his jacket. Stiles could smell the burning flesh and started to panic. Then he thought of Derek coming because he panicked and started to choke for breath as he fell to the floor. They all heard another crash as a wall collapsed and the walls shook with the upheaval. Stiles fell to the floor and closed his eyes, his mind crazed with worry and lack of oxygen. He could feel himself losing his grip on reality when he heard a voice in his head. 

'You've got this. Let it out,' it whispered. 'Protect them.'

Stiles stared at his hands, vision blurring at the edges, and formed a fist before putting all his force into slamming it down into the floor boards. A cracking, like thunder before lightning strikes, boomed through his ear drums as he passed out. 

Talia and Cora were knocked to the floor when Stiles' right fist came into contact with the floor. They skidded across the floor in a pile of limbs before jumping back to attention to find a way out of the burning house. 

But the house wasn't burning. A freak rain storm started pelting the house hard enough to put out the flames, leaving a smoldering mess behind. 

Groans of pain and shuffling feet were heard outside before pairs of feet carried a few disoriented hunters through the trees to beat a hasty retreat. Cora threw herself to the floor at her brother's side and pulled him into her lap to determine if he was okay. She jumped when Stiles' phone started vibrating violently in his pocket, squished against her own thigh. She fished the device out to stop it from distracting her from checking Stiles when she saw 'Der' written on the display. 

"Derek!" She answered gratefully upon hearing not only his breathing on the other end, but the patrol cars pulling into their long driveway. 

"What the fucking hell happened? I almost suffocated this time! Where's Stiles?"

Cora let out a hysterical laugh when she heard the officers getting out of their cruisers and pointing their service weapons at the remaining hunters. "He saved us."

"What? Let me speak to Stiles, Cora!"

"He blacked out."

Cora heard cursing from Derek before he shouted, "I'll be there in a few hours. He better be okay!" The connection cut off and Cora discarded the phone.

 

***

 

Derek arrived to see his childhood home charred and partially collapsed. His way up the drive was blocked by police cruisers and people yelling. He vaguely remembered slamming his car door closed and running past the cruisers, eying left and right to find his family. In the back of an ambulance was Stiles, groggily blinking with an oxygen mask on his face beside Cora.

"Der!" 

Stiles struggled to disentangle himself from the oxygen mask and crashed into Derek's arms. Derek held the young man in his grip, still lean and shorter than Derek but not by much these days. His heart unclenched for the first time in months as he breathed in the scent of Stiles' sweat and listened to the heartbeat that indicated the wellbeing of his mate. 

"I could kill Cora. Telling me you passed out so nonchalantly." Derek felt the smile against his neck when he growled low in his throat at their sister's stupidity. Cora rolled her eyes over Stiles' shoulder. He tried to pull back to look at Stiles' face but the arms around his neck only tightened and were joined by the eighteen-year-old's legs wrapping about Derek's torso and locking in place as Stiles had done years ago. Derek knew from experience that he was not escaping any time soon. 

Abram spotted his sons and came forward to embrace the two together, holding an arm out to Cora, who joined with a smile. "I'm glad you're home safe, son." Stiles started to cry into Derek's shoulder in soft sniffles and gasping breaths. Abram rubbed Stiles' back in an attempt to soothe him but Stiles continued, oblivious of his surroundings and the EMTs that stared, wondering if they could coax the kid back into a mask.

"Shhh. You're okay, Szcze. I've got you." Abram pulled away at Derek's silent signal and took a seat beside Cora on the back of the ambulance under the guise of checking on his youngest child. In actuality, the pair were most intrigued by the dynamics of Stiles and Derek's relationship. They watched as Stiles got a little more worked up and Derek brought up a hand to harshly squeeze the back of Stiles' neck until he yelped and finally heaved in a full breath.

Small apology kisses were placed on Stiles' pale neck as Derek walked back the way he came and found his car splashed with mud in the wet grass that lined the Hale family's lane way. Derek managed to open his door and push the driver's seat forward to reveal the back seat. 

"Get in, Stiles. I'll grab the blanket from the trunk and we'll cuddle it out like real men, okay?"

Stiles grinned as he let go of Derek and climbed into the car, tossing his old runners into the foot well of the passenger seat. Derek retrieved the blanket, returned to the open door and climbed in before removing and discarding his shoes like Stiles did.

Derek pulled the door closed behind him, shutting out the rest of the world from their existence. Passing the woven afghan to Stiles, Derek sat on the bench seat, back to the window and held out his arms to the younger man. No time was wasted as Stiles settled his back against Derek's warm chest and the two pairs of hands worked to unfold and drape the blanket over their cuddled forms. 

Stiles laced the fingers of their left hands together, feeling how Derek started to leach his pain away. With eyes closed, Stiles rested his head against Derek's shoulder. He bared his neck and received a pleased rumble from Derek as the werewolf nipped at the pale, freckle-dusted skin. The tears that Stiles had been holding back for months built up pressure at the corner of his whiskey colored eyes before rolling down his face. Derek held Stiles tighter as he fixated at a spot on the younger boy's neck and laved his tongue across the sensitive flesh before latching on with a hard suck. 

"Der," Stiles gasped his name out at the sensation. 

Derek released the skin and lifted his free hand to wipe away the tear tracks on Stiles' face, tilting the human's face to nuzzle at the rosy cheeks. "I can't ever tell you how sorry I am that I left. It hurt me physically to do it Stiles, but I didn't want to take away your choices. I wanted you to mature without my influence and decide what you wanted for yourself."

"I just wanted you to come home. I wanted my brother back."

Derek sighed. "Stiles," he couldn't think of a good way to say this, "I can't be a brother to you anymore."

Stiles stopped breathing before he started hyperventilating. Derek pushed the teen's head forward before clamping his teeth down on the back of his neck, hard and possessive. The action worked, Stiles snapping back to normal breathing patterns. 

"When you have panic attacks, I feel my chest tighten painfully and have a hard time breathing. That's how I know to call you every time." The bite on Stiles' neck was red and inflamed as Derek licked it in apology, soothing the bite and pausing in his explanation. "We have an empathetic bond - a mate bond, Stiles. I can't be your brother because every instinct I have is screaming at me to claim you as my mate and protect you. I love you more than I could possibly ever tell you, Stiles. I always have. That's why I stayed away. You deserved the chance to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and to live vicariously; you deserved the chance to be as normal as a human in a wolf pack can be."

The two sat in silence for a few minutes with Derek burying his nose in Stiles' neck to inhale the beautiful scent that was his mate. Every fibre of his being longed to consummate their bond and bite down on the spot where Stiles was currently sporting a hickey. Stiles pushed back into Derek more firmly and turned his head to look at Derek. 

"Remember when I was 11 and we had Isaac here for two weeks?" Derek nodded silently, "I don't even remember what you said but you made me cry and I hid in the bottom of my closet. I remember that you squeezed in there with me and held me like this. Or when I started having separation anxiety and panic attacks. You came home more for me and cuddled me all weekend."

"You've always been a tactile kid. It calmed you down when you were a baby too." Derek paused before continuing another train of thought. "I remember your father - the sheriff. You look a bit like him but mostly like your mother, I guess. He squinted his eyes the same way you do and you definitely got his smile. But most of all, you always had a bit of him in your scent. To me, you smell like citrus, a hint of coffee grounds and earthy, like the forest after a rain storm. Your dad smelled like coffee too. Like a strong cup of dark roast with a bit of milk in it and gun oil. He told me once that he oiled his service piece every night before putting it away when I asked him once."

Stiles remained silent but nodded every now and then while Derek spoke softly in his ear. 

"Der?"

"Yeah?"

"You hurt me. A lot. You left without a word and expected me to be okay with it but I wasn't and I'm still not. I get why you left, but I'm still angry. It might take me a long time to be okay with you again. I love you, Der, but I'm not ready to forgive you." Two more tears slipped down Stiles' flushed cheeks as he squeezed Derek's interlaced hand harder before letting up. 

"Okay."

They sat together in more silence before Derek spoke again. "I have to go back soon."

Stiles stiffened before pushing away and turning around to stare at Derek, hitting his head on the roof of the car. "You can't leave!" Derek frowned, pulling Stiles forward a leg at a time to straddle Derek's hips before running a soothing hand through the short brown fuzz on Stiles' head to check for any harm done. 

Stiles composed himself before continuing in a pleading tone. 

"Don't leave. You can't leave me anymore, Der. You don't know how much it takes to let you leave and not know when or if you'll come back."

His eyes flicked across Derek's face before noting how the older man's eyes flitted between Stiles' eyes and lips. His eyes did the same and he found himself leaning in to press a chaste kiss to his older brother's lips. It felt like something clicked into place inside of him and he found his lips claimed in another kiss that stole the air from his lungs. Derek pulled back and angled his face so that their foreheads rested together. 

"I need to pack up my place and quit my job, Stiles. I need to come home for good." Stiles' demeanor shifted as a huge grin formed on his lips and pulled away to bury his face into Derek's collar. "I want you to come with me. Help me pack up and move everything."

"Okay," came the mumbled reply from his collar. 

 

***

 

Derek was the one to drive Stiles up to Berkeley to tour the campus during the summer. Their parents had tried to bring him a few times during the year but a scheduling conflict had always come up, so Derek received permission to bring Stiles on a trip to see the sprawling campus for the first time. 

Derek had been making it up to Stiles over the past month and a half, feeling their bond repair and strengthen more each day. He had finally come up with a grand gesture to win Stiles' trust and forgiveness and planned to enact this gesture over the four-day trip. 

Stiles fidgeted in the passenger seat for the first two hours before Derek asked what was bothering him. With a gulp, Stiles steeled himself before he spoke. 

"I want to be with you."

"So do I," Derek added just to make his intentions clear. 

"So how the hell do I introduce you?"

Derek nodded as he reached the realization that Stiles had already gotten to. Derek had thought of this over the past few years. 

"We legally can't get married unless we went to the UK or somewhere else that recognizes marriage between unrelated adopted siblings, but I do have a solution of sorts."

Stiles bit his lip nervously, "Which is?"

"Change your last name to Stilinski-Hale, so that people know we aren't technically related and don't jump to conclusions, and we wear rings," Derek smiled at his mate before returning to watch the road. "Introduce me as your partner or husband, if you're comfortable with it. If not, we can think of something else."

"Are you sure-?"

"Wolves mate for life, Stiles. This is your decision. I will be by your side for as long as you'll have me."

There was a lull with only the sounds of interstate traffic outside of the Camaro and the quiet guitar riffs from the almost-muted rock station on the radio. "Okay. Let's do it."

 

***

 

After touring campus, Stiles expected that they would stay another night and return home the next day. Derek surprised him by sitting him down and asking Stiles if he wanted Derek to move with him. Upon hearing a vehement yes, Derek asked if Stiles would live with him and received more agreement before Stiles pushed Derek down on his hotel bed and kissed him. When they finally separated, Derek dug through his bag and came back with something in his hand. 

"Hand," he said in a quiet voice and Stiles held up his right hand. Derek gave him a look and Stiles switched hands. "This belonged to Mom's great grandmother." He held up a ring with an uneven exterior but smooth inner circumference. "She refused the bite when Great-Great Grandpa Hale claimed her as his mate, so he forged her a ring with his own two hands to gift to his human mate."

Stiles looked from the ring poised before his hand and back to Derek. 

"Stiles, will you be my mate and partner through life?"

With a watery smile, Stiles nodded. "I will," he managed to reply before Derek slid the ring onto his fourth finger. Derek smiled at him and wiped away his tears, touching their foreheads together. 

That day, they went apartment hunting and Derek introduced Stiles as his partner for the first time to the realtor. 

 

***

 

Abram stood in an embrace behind his wife in the hallway as the summer breeze filtered through the open doors and windows at the front and rear of the house. They watched through the open doorway to the back yard as Derek and Stiles were leaned in close, talking quietly to each other on the porch with teasing smiles. 

"I never imagined this when we took in Szcze as a child. Never would have thought that I would see either of them so happy, figuring out life together," Abram whispered in his wife's ear so as not to alert Derek to their conversation. 

They watched as Stiles shoved Derek's hulking form sideways onto the deck and pounced on him to pin him down. 

"You're definitely sleeping on the floor this time," Stiles said in mock seriousness. 

"I did last time anyways," Derek smiled as he looked at Stiles like he hung the moon in the sky. 

Stiles pulled back from pinning Derek down to sit above him. "Come on! That's cheating! You can't use the puppy eyes on me, Der!" The pair laughed as Derek sat up and cradled his mate close in his arms. 

Talia remembered it all like it was yesterday as they watched their boys, Derek and Stiles, banter back and forth on the back porch and smiled. Stiles may not have been born a Hale, but he was 100% pack.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
